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Recent news suggests we could be on the verge of a renaissance in pharmaceutical R&D – which would be terrific news for patients and health care systems here and around the world.

A report just released by the Analysis Group says:

More than 5,000 potential new medicines are being evaluated in human testing – an all-time record. More than 800 are in Phase 3 – the last stage of human testing.

Of these, 70 percent have the potential to be “first-in-class” – meaning their mechanisms of action are different from already-approved medicines. First-in-class medicines often work in diseases for which there are no existing treatment options, or help patients who don’t respond to current medicines.

More potential medicines are being developed for diseases for which no new therapies have been approved in the last 10 years – including ovarian and cervical cancers, septic shock, and ALS – Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Furthermore, research into rare diseases – defined as those affecting fewer than 200,000 people – is flourishing. Over the past decade, the number of medicines being developed to treat these diseases – 140 per year – is more than double the average in the previous decade.

Equally promising: ongoing scientific discoveries and advances are providing scientists with new approaches for tackling the most challenging diseases.

For example, monoclonal antibodies target and kill tumors while sparing healthy cells. The first of these was approved in the mid-90s. Today, more than 30 have been approved and biopharmaceutical companies are developing hundreds more.

And efforts to develop “personalized medicine” – therapies tailored to individual patients based on their genetic makeup – are expanding. These medicines hold the promise of better outcomes for both patients and payers. Three such medicines were approved in 2011 and 2012, and the report forecasts that R&D investment in personalized medicines will jump 50 percent between 2010 and 2015.

This is all great news for patients. And, remember, these medicines come from biopharmaceutical companies – the vast majority of which are based in the U.S.

In fact, our biopharmaceutical sector is the envy of the world. U.S. inventors and companies hold the intellectual property rights to a majority of new medicines; account for more than 80 percent of the world’s biotech R&D; and are testing more potential medicines in clinical trials than the rest of the world combined. U.S. biopharmaceutical companies invested some $50 billion in R&D in 2011, and employ directly and indirectly some four million Americans.

This dominance wasn’t always the case. As recently as 1990, the pharmaceutical industry spent 50 percent more on research in Europe than in the U.S. By 2001, that was reversed, with the industry spending 40 percent more in the U.S. – and we’ve never looked back.

A big part of the reason is we’ve built an environment in which innovation can flourish. To keep it that way will require sound public policy that makes it possible for companies that do this important work to sustain an innovation-based strategy.

This includes solid protection of intellectual property; a fair, rigorous and transparent regulatory system; and free market access – where doctors and patients are able to choose, in an informed way, from all available treatment alternatives.

These fundamentals are as important as ever, because, for all our progress, there’s a crying need for new medicines. The number of Americans with diabetes continues to skyrocket. Over a lifetime, men have a one-in-two risk of developing cancer; women, one in three. And the direct costs for caring for Americans with Alzheimer’s disease is forecast to multiply five-fold by 2050 and surpass $1 trillion unless new treatments are found that delay its onset or slow its progression.

The data I cited earlier hint at an exciting new Spring of medical innovation for patients. The last thing we want to do – or can afford to do – is stop it cold.